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This is a longitudinal study to investigate whether there is a correlation between the methods for completion of homework and the incentive levels with academic achievement. The method adopted in this study is the t-test statistical analysis to assess the relationship between the use of compulsory homework on achievement and the influence of intervening and moderating variables. The findings are as follows -- Cohort 1 which completed homework in the traditional pen and paper style (with a mean of 13.278) performed better than the Cohort 2 which completed homework online They also performed better than Cohort 2 which completed homework online (with a mean of 11.851). Cohort 3 that had no incentive and subsequently no compulsion to do the homework (with a mean of 11.851) performed better than Cohort 2 which completed homework online (with a mean of 9.658).

As humanity reaches the 5.0 industrial revolution, education plays a critical role in boosting the quality of human resources. This paper reports bibliometric research on emerging TiP during 1993-2022 in the educational field to analyse its development on any level of education during the last three decades. This study employed a Scopus database. The findings are that the trend of TiP publication in educational fields has tended to increase every year during the past three decades and conference paper became the most published document type, the USA is the country which produces the most publications; "Students" being the most occurrences keyword and total link strength. The publication of the TiP is ranked to the Quartile 1, which implies that a publication with the cited performance is a publication with credibility because the publisher has a good reputation. Researchers can find the topics most relevant to other metadata sources such as Web of Science, Publish, and Perish.

Learning statistics can be challenging for many students, due to their inability to engage in statistical reasoning and application of techniques. This challenge becomes compounded in online learning contexts where students are spatially and temporally separated from the teacher. This paper describes and explains a case of theory-driven interventions designed to enhance the learning experiences of students enrolled in two similar business statistics units, one for undergraduate and the other for postgraduate programs. The paper based its claims primarily on the analysis of data from a student evaluation of teaching survey. This study affirmed the importance of a pedagogy-first approach. It argued that the interventions, which were effective in enhancing the student learning experience, were underpinned by a robust pedagogical analysis of the teaching and learning issues using both constructive alignment and transactional distance theory lenses.

The rapid spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in the first half of 2020 disrupted and changed higher education across the world, and into the future. Campuses were shut down, almost overnight. International and State borders were closed and business models that relied heavily on high-paying international students collapsed. University leaders and academics were forced to find new ways of attracting, engaging with, and retaining students. This paper describes a project that was undertaken in Australia in 2021 which investigated the implications of, and scope for online assessment in this "new virtual world" of learning and teaching in higher education. After extensive research and consultation, the project developed a Digital Assessment Framework dubbed DASH C21, which stands for Digital Assessment Stretching Horizons for the 21st Century. The Framework is based on a set of underpinning principles and values; the Inputs. The Inputs feed into four Dimensions. These Dimensions are Practices and Pedagogies, Strategies, Emerging Technologies and Stretching Horizons. The Outputs are a series of authentic, innovative, experiential and forward looking, digital assessments, reinforced by academic integrity values. This paper will be of particular interest to higher education senior managers, academics, learning and teaching specialists, staff professional developers and curriculum designers.

Before the COVID-19 outbreak, universities were already exploring the potential of online education. Colleges and universities throughout the world became more reliant on online learning management systems (LMSs) and videoconferencing tools like "Zoom" and "Microsoft Teams" during the 2020-2021 campus' lockdowns. The transition from traditional face-to-face teaching to online learning presented significant difficulties for universities, particularly those that depended heavily on international students. The project reported in this paper was undertaken in Australia in 2021 at the request of a private higher education institution. A new student-centric version of the Moodle learning management system (LMS) was created to maximise the platform's pedagogical, communicative, and informational capabilities. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate how online learning platforms that are flexible, utilise embedded interactive features and resources, and are freely available can enhance and support the delivery of quality online education. The paper discusses how well-designed learning management systems have the capacity to motivate, engage and retain students in online learning. Academics, at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, as well as those working in curriculum development and information technology at institutions of higher learning, may find this article to be of interest and value.

University degrees are usually delivered in defined sessions--by term, semester, or in week-based blocks--whereby students are required to complete their studies by the due date. Term or session-based schedules that require students to complete the study within set timeframes are, however, potentially restrictive. Temporal challenges associated with work and life can impede progress and add to the specific problem of student attrition in online learning. As universities seek to deliver innovative options for their students, increased attention is being paid to alternate models of delivery. This paper reports on the development of a hyperflexible online Master of Business Administration (MBA) course by a regional university in Australia, which has grown to more than 1,000 students since its launch in 2017. Delivered entirely online, the degree was specifically designed to address an inequity; MBA programs are traditionally expensive, and in Australia, the requirement for students to travel to attend residential schools and examinations adds significant cost to already expensive tuition fees. This paper analyzed enrollment data, course analytics over a two-year period, and student surveys conducted at the end of the second year of delivery (n = 98) to evaluate the development and implementation of the course as a hyperflexible course whereby students have almost complete control over their study at the postgraduate tertiary level. Results highlight the potential for the model to enable student success through flexibility.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the move to remote education exposed old and new inequities, yet it also represented an opportunity to rethink inclusive education. This paper presents findings from a one-year project "DIGITAL in a time of Coronavirus" and draws upon policy analysis and interviews with teachers, principals, and community leaders from six countries in the Global North and South (Italy, England, Malaysia, Australia, United States and Chile). By mobilising education assemblage theory to challenge binary divisions (included/excluded, modern/colonial, local/global), it presents five concepts to rethink inclusion and its relationship with technologies. It illustrates how during the pandemic alternative entanglements of digital and non-digital technologies challenged narrow and Eurocentric constructions of the digital divide enabling inclusive subjective experiences. Drawing upon local possibilities and histories, re-habilitating non-scientific knowledges, especially in view of future experiences of blended education, the paper seeks to provide policy tools to rethink current understandings of inclusive education.

Purpose: Microteaching is a teacher training method based on microclasses (groups of four or five students) and microlessons lasting no more than 5-20 min. Since it was first explored in the late 20th century in experiments at Stanford University, microteaching has evolved at the interdisciplinary level. The purpose of this paper is to examine the networks found via an analytical bibliometric study of the scientific output related with microteaching in teacher training, through a study and examination of the Web of Science database. Design/methodology/approach: This research was conducted with the VOSviewer tool for content analysis through data mining and scientific network structure mapping by means of the normalisation technique. This technique is based on the association strength indicator, which is interpreted as a measurement of the similarity of the units of analysis. Findings: Two hundred and nine articles were thus obtained from the Web of Science database. The networks generated and the connections among the various items, co-authorship and co-citation are presented in the results, which clearly indicates that there are significant authors and institutions in the field of microteaching. The largest cluster is made up of institutions such as Australian Catholic University. The most often-cited document is by Rich and Hannafin. Allen (1968), who defines microteaching as a technique based on microclasses and microlessons, is the author most often cited and has the largest number of connections. Research limitations/implications: This research's limitations concern either aspects that lie beyond the study's possibilities or goals that have proved unattainable. The second perspective, which focuses on skill transfer, contains a lower percentage of documents and therefore has a weaker central documentary structure. Lastly, the authors have also had to bear in mind the fact that the scientific output hinges upon a highly specific realm, the appearance and/or liberalisation of digital technologies and access to those technologies in the late 20th century. Originality/value: This research shows that microteaching is a promising area of research that opens up vast possibilities in higher education teacher training for application in the realm of technologies. This paper could lead to several lines of future research, such as access to and the universal design of learning from the standpoint of different communication and pedagogical models based on microteaching.

Higher education informatization (HEI) is an interdisciplinary field that examines the use and integration of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in higher education. This paper provides a bibliometric and visual analysis of the research trends, patterns, and topics in this field. Using the Web of Science database, the authors selected and analyzed 199 SCI and SSCI papers on HEI published from 2000 to 2023 by VOSviewer and CiteSpace software. The results indicate that the publication volume of HEI research has grown significantly in recent years. The author network shows the collaboration and contribution of different researchers and institutions, while the journal network reveals the multidisciplinary nature and scope of the field. The keyword network and the burst keyword analysis identify the main research themes and the emerging hot topics in HEI. The co-citation network of sources illustrates the theoretical and methodological foundations and influences of the field. The paper concludes with some implications and suggestions for future HEI research.

This paper reports the findings of a bibliometric analysis using VOSviewer on 392 Scopus database documents published from 2003 to 2022, aiming to understand the global landscape of the e-learning field and to identify the most prominent authors, institutions, countries and reference publications, as well as the research topics that have recently received the most attention in students' readiness for e-learning in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). The findings indicate that there has been an upward trend in e-learning readiness among students in HEIs over time. Among the countries studied, the United States, Taiwan, Australia, and Malaysia were found to have the most effective approaches to addressing students' readiness for e-learning. The most highly cited author in this field is M-L. Hung. Based on the citations, the most recognised journal in this field was "Computers and Education" and the universities that were most persuasive were two Taiwan universities in the first position. The data also revealed relatively low levels of collaboration among authors, institutions and nations regarding students' readiness for e-learning.

This paper examines the response by a Vocational Education and Training (VET) provider in the Northern Territory (NT) of Australia to the travel and social distancing restrictions brought about by COVID-19. The paper commences with a description of the impact of COVID-19 on the VET sector. The paper then describes the VET regulatory environment prior to February 2020 and the responsibility of VET providers to comply with the requirements of the Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA), in the delivery of VET programs to domestic and international students. A discussion of the lack of a specific vocational education pedagogy, the complexity of delivering VET programs online as well as current research findings in this area follows. A description of the College provides the context to examine the impact of COVID-19 on the delivery of programs in the Northern Territory VET sector. The paper describes how the College, which had a high international student cohort, migrated their courses online in order to remain viable in the highly volatile and unforeseen circumstances brought about by COVID-19. In order to ascertain the effectiveness of the online delivery of course offerings, a questionnaire and a series of face to face and telephone interviews were conducted with key stakeholders. The mixed method approach employed in this research was consistent with contemporary social and educational research. The paper concludes with the call for a new paradigm and policy shift in Vocational Education and Training post COVID-19.

The study aims to understand the foremost challenges in the transition to online teaching and learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study adopts the PRISMA approach to screening the selection of journal articles and review papers according to the research aims and the inclusion criteria. The journal articles and review papers were extracted and stored in Microsoft Excel and Google Scholar, Academic. Microsoft, Semantic Scholar, Elsevier, and Emerald Insight databases searched relevant documents using formulated keywords. A statistical technique was applied using the M.S. Excel analysis tool (PivotTable and an independent t-Test) to analyze data and determine the differences between teachers and students. The review revealed the evidence that the majority of the studies were primarily focused on the individual developing countries and results from other developing countries were not considered. In addition, the foremost challenges in the transition to online teaching and learning during the COVID-19 pandemic were inadequate skills and training, inadequate Internet/Infrastructure, lack of supporting resources and lack of online student engagement and feedback. Finally, the independent t-test reveals there is no statistically significant difference in challenges in the transition to online teaching and learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. Both teachers and students encounter similar challenges. The systematic review raised concerns that higher learning needs to effectively implement long term strategies and support teachers and students in getting into online teaching and learning.

Recent negotiations of 'data' in schools place focus on student assessment and NAPLAN. However, with the rise in artificial intelligence (AI) underpinning educational technology, there is a need to shift focus towards the value of teachers' digital data. By doing so, the broader debate surrounding the implications of these technologies and rights within the classroom as a workplace becomes more apparent to practitioners and educational researchers. Drawing on the Australian Human Rights Commission's "Human Rights and Technology final report," this conceptual paper focusses on teachers' rights alongside emerging technologies that use or provide predictive analytics or artificial intelligence, also called 'personalisation'. The lens of Postdigital positionality guides the discussion. Three potential consequences are presented as provocations: (1) What might happen if emerging technology uses teachers' digital data that represent current societal inequality? (2) What might happen if insights provided by such technology are inaccurate, insufficient, or unrepresentative of our teachers? (3) What might happen if the design of the AI system itself is discriminatory? This conceptual paper argues for increased discourse about technologies that use or provide predictive analytics complemented by considering potential consequences associated with algorithmic bias.

Traditional design education models foreground place-based learning and teaching approaches that situate educators and students together in the studio. This experience enables an engaged and participatory teaching practice in which over-the-shoulder feedback and peer-to-peer critique become essential formal and informal learning interactions. However, the COVID-19 pandemic significantly interrupted the educational offerings of higher education institutions. Face to face learning ceased and rapidly pivoted to online and new remote models of delivery. For students studying design at the University of Sydney, this disruption significantly impacted the design studio--a space traditionally understood as a physical learning environment and a mode of learning and teaching. This paper presents a case study of two approaches to teaching design studio online delivered in early 2020. The first approach adopted an asynchronous delivery model in which students engaged with online materials at a time of their choosing, with assessments designed as individual tasks. The second approach adopted a synchronous delivery model in which students participated online in real-time, and assessment tasks were predominantly small-group tasks. In sharing the experiences of both case studies, this paper considers the role of synchronicity in delivering design studio online across four themes: interaction, assessment, feedback and design learning. Finally, the paper presents practice-based lessons that could inform pedagogical practices in design and support future models of design education.

Educators constantly need to make adjustments to their pedagogy and learning activities to reflect the fast changes in society, the economy and industry. This has been clearly demonstrated throughout the world in the response to the COVID-19 pandemic required fully remote delivery of tertiary education. The aim of this study was comparing the experiences and perceptions of tertiary students in a fully online and a blended delivery mode, particularly in response to their laboratory skills and development of graduate attributes. Pedagogical aspects were kept consistent across delivery modes to minimise the differences in learning activities across cohorts. A comparison was made between the 2020 fully online cohort and the 2021 blended delivery cohort. The students were asked about their perceptions of how well they thought the course developed their graduate attributes; how authentic they thought the course was; and how easy the content was to navigate and understand. A mixed methods approach was used, where both quantitative and qualitative data was gathered. The blended delivery mode students appeared to benefit from having a specific reflective task, which allowed them to see their learning in a broader context. The paper discusses the blending and online learning from the students' perspectives of developing graduate attributes and experiential learning. Specifically, where hands on skills are required, students need further guidance in "learning how to learn" or metacognition. A key challenge for future blended learning is getting the balance right between achieving efficiency in online learning and lack of social and dynamic interactions aspect of the online community.

This study aimed to reveal the trend of research on e-assessment in the field of educational sciences through scientific mapping and bibliometric analyses. For this purpose, the numerical distribution of research on e-assessment, citation analysis, research themes and the change of trend topics were examined. The publications to be examined were selected from WoS database according to PRISMA model, and 911 studies were included in the analysis. VOSviewer, Biblioshiny, Smart Bibliometrics and Leximancer software were used in data analysis. Apparently, there has been a significant increase in the number of research since 2005, and publications have been mostly produced in form of articles and papers. The most cited and the most productive countries are the USA, the United Kingdom and Australia, while the most cited journals are Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education and British Journal of Educational Technology. An analysis of the keyword map revealed that the themes of technology and motivation, blended learning and collaboration, interaction and innovative approaches, validity and reliability, higher education, quality, basic disciplines and COVID-19 were frequently emphasized in the studies on e-assessment. An analysis of trend topics by years showed that, between 2010 and 2021, the trend topic distribution changed to include topics such as COVID-19, academic integrity, engagement, cheating, case study, and higher education. All these findings reveal that e-evaluation activities have displayed a development and transformation over time with the effect of developing technology, the pandemic, the spread of e-learning, the expansion of communication opportunities and many other factors.

Learning management systems (LMSs) have long been adopted by tertiary education providers to be the conduit through which courses are delivered. However, debates about the capacity of the LMS to meet all the required current and future needs of both students and educators have become more pronounced over the past few years, particularly given the rapid shift to online learning during COVID-19. This qualitative study aimed to examine practitioners' current experiences in using the LMS for formal teaching and learning in tertiary environments. To discern the possibilities and issues, a focus group was held with fourteen practitioners from Australasia (Australia and Singapore), Canada, and the UK (England and Scotland) attending virtually. Adopting a novel and recognised approach to thematic analysis, a Delphi process was adopted on the de-identified webinar and chat transcripts. Analysis revealed several key themes ranging across pedagogical, technological, and managerial issues with the LMS. The findings in this paper have become even more pertinent as a result of COVID-19 with institutions urgently reviewing standards for teaching in the LMS whilst also reviewing their overall technology ecosystems to ensure a suite of complementary teaching and learning tools to enable best teaching and learning practices. It appears the LMS still has a key role to play in contemporary learning ecosystems.

Contemporary technology, along with the tangible/virtual duality of present-day learner consciousness, are, in the authors' opinion, necessitating and enabling a fundamental educational transformation. A central feature of this development will be 'letting the learners lead', including (from secondary onwards) their identification of the content of their curriculum. This paper considers how this pedagogical innovation might operate in practice. Nine United Kingdom (specifically South Wales) senior secondary students were invited to decide what they would "like to learn in the coming academic year". The group then explored how their agreed set of subjects (including, for instance, Sign Language; History of Coal Mining in My Locality; Mental Health and Me; Being Ready for the Next Pandemic; Pantomime…) might best be learned. These approaches and findings were shared with, understood by, and generally supported by a group of upper secondary school students in Australia and, to a lesser extent, by another group in Bangladesh. Dialogue with a small number of professors and other United Kingdom professionals also took place. The tentative conclusions and implications are that (a) university entrance requirements are predominantly aimed at student selection rather than at covering necessary pre-tertiary knowledge; (b) if, somehow, the competitive element -- including the allocation of grades -- could be eliminated, then giving learners the opportunity to shape their curricula becomes feasible; (c) letting the learners lead is seen (by a sample of them) as realistic and (with some reservations) desirable; (d) much of this learning would involve on-line research through the confident utilisation of familiar devices and systems (i.e. how 'non-school' information is now acquired); (e) there would also be on-line and face-to-face discussions with experts and practitioners; (f) teachers, with radically restructured roles, could offer valuable coordination and encouragement; and (g) the school as 'place' (as opposed to 'process') may wither away as the transformation proceeds. The authors are keen that their provisional findings should be tested by educational planners and researchers in other educational situations across the world.

Higher education teaching abruptly changed during the COVID-19 pandemic to remote, on-line learning and teaching. The use of on-line communication software to teach became the norm and remains at many institutions. This software contains features, such as the chat, that offer teaching and learning advantages; however, potential benefits can be challenging to realise for academics used to traditional modes of lecture delivery. In most cases a solo-taught lecture designed for a physical room does not transition well to the on-line space. Co-teaching, which involves two or more academics teaching the same class, is a pedagogy that can improve engagement and satisfaction for students and academics alike. However, how co-teaching can transition to the on-line space and take full benefit of the communication software features is not well known. We recognised that some aspects of sports announcing (commentating) align with desirable qualities of co-teaching on-line. In this paper we use these features to develop a practical framework for co-teaching in the on-line space and evaluate the model in a second-year university science subject. Using data from student surveys, we found that the co-teaching model helped integrate the chat functionality into the main lecture and led to improved engagement and enjoyment of on-line classes. The model also assisted students in identifying key learning outcomes. Using the framework as a practical guide for how to incorporate co-teaching into on-line classes helps realise the benefits of contemporary communication software.

This quasi-experimental research design surveyed 688 students through a self-administered online survey to specifically explore relations between student self-assessed capabilities (Lizzio Five Senses, 2006), overall program satisfaction, withdrawal behaviours, demographics and year of study in their university courses during an emergency COVID-19 lockdown experience. Importantly, this research offers a more nuanced view of the "Five Senses" and confirms their importance as a university strategy for student success. These findings offer further granularity into the complex set of relations that impact decisions around satisfaction, persistence, and capability in higher education and support previous research by Lizzio and Wilson (2008) indicating students' perceptions of "purpose" is the strongest predictor of satisfaction, lower anxiety and lower course withdrawal. Ultimately, the paper suggests as higher education looks towards future possible disruptions due to climate, health or political realities, equipping and fostering a strong sense of purpose, connectedness, and resourcefulness as well as sense of capability and academic culture will buffer and support students to persevere. In addition, this research suggests that those students who may have weak associations with these senses merit additional attention.

Internationalising the curriculum in higher education offers cultural insights and exchanges to live and work in a changing and connected world. The authors are tertiary music educators working in three different countries (Australia, Spain, and the United States of America). Though geographically dispersed yet virtually connected, they delivered a series of five music professional learning workshops to Bachelor of Primary Education students at a university in Spain (March 2021-April 2021). They draw on narrative reflections and student voices to discuss intercultural perspectives of teaching and learning using the 5P model of professional development. The authors use thematic analysis to code and analyse the data discussing two overarching themes: collaborative professional learning and professional sharing. The authors contend that cultivating collaborative initiatives through virtual platforms can purposefully contribute to intercultural communication where ideas, knowledge, skills, and pedagogies are shared. While this paper focuses on one group of students, a limitation in itself, recommendations are offered that can be adapted and adopted across other learning areas. The implications indicate that further research is needed to assess whether intercultural teaching from cross-cultural and culture-specific perspectives stimulates sociocultural learning and growth for teachers and students for whom English is an additional language.

In this paper we report on a study of the impact of digital technology (DT) innovations on students' learning in a Western Australian University. The innovations were implemented by 42 course coordinators (CC) following two days of learning design workshops. In collaboration with nine CCs, we conducted an evaluation of their innovations. Data were collected through two structured interviews with each CC and an online questionnaire for 1500 students. Elements of students' course feedback were incorporated into the final analysis of the data. A model for improving students learning in a digital environment was used as a guide to the evaluation process. The findings indicated that DT interventions helped students prepare for laboratory activities and class participation, increased their levels of interaction and collaboration, and provided effective and timely management of feedback from lecturers. Students also reported greater access to learning resources, plus more motivation and engagement. CCs were generally pleased with their innovations; however, in their second interview, at the end of the semester, CCs identified several aspects of their course design that warranted improvement, including the need for more professional support in making those improvements.

Recent years have seen an explosion in video content available online. Yet there is relatively scant research on if, how, and why second language (L2) learners engage with videos in their target language as part of their self-directed study--especially for languages with a smaller media footprint. This paper presents qualitative findings from a longitudinal study of the self-directed study behaviours, collected through learning diaries and stimulated recall interviews, of eight intermediate-advanced learners of Auslan (Australia Sign Language) enrolled at an Australian higher education provider. Findings show that our participants were sporadic video watchers, who largely relied on YouTube and social media for discovering Auslan content. The lack of an Auslan media industry means that online texts were often dry informational texts or user-generated content of varied quality and this negatively affected some participants motivation for watching. However, when they made time to engage with it, participants proved themselves to be highly strategic L2 viewers, who used a sophisticated range of approaches in comprehending linguistically demanding content.

Nudging has been used in a range of fields to shape citizens' behavior and promote public priorities. However, in educational contexts, nudges have only been explored relatively recently, with limited but promising evidence for the role of nudging used to increase engagement in online study, particularly in higher education. This paper reports on findings from a project that investigated the use of nudging in course-specific online learning contexts. The project evaluated the effectiveness of an intervention that combined course learning analytics data with a nudge strategy that encouraged students' engagement with crucial course resources. When implemented in a planned and strategic manner in online courses, findings show that nudging offers a promising strategy for motivating students to access key online resources.

Despite the global trend of growing diversity in student enrolment, most teacher education programmes remain inward-looking, oriented to national core standards and resist academic calls for internationalisation. While we agree that internationalisation at home is possible under certain circumstances, we put forward the argument that dialogic contact between student teachers in different national contexts has the potential to foster teacher education students' intercultural competence and offer opportunities for professional development that go beyond those offered by traditional programmes. This paper reports on the creation of a virtual transnational 'third place' for teacher education students based in Hamburg and Sydney, built around the mutual analysis of their respective visual linguistic biographies. We will show that such a transnational space and reflexive activity enhances student teachers' awareness of what it means to be and become a multilingual subject in other parts of the world, thus promoting self-awareness and the ability to decentre. Additionally, we claim that these activities have the potential to enhance teacher education students' attitudes towards the implementation of multilingual pedagogies.

The higher education sector has learnt a great deal in the online delivery shift due to COVID-19, however, student voice has been underrepresented in literature. This paper reveals 15 student perspectives, including both international and domestic students, who were studying a Master of Teaching (Secondary) at one university in Melbourne, Australia, during heightened social distancing restrictions. The inductive thematic qualitative data analysis collected through semi-structured interviews showed opportunities and challenges of learning experiences. Emergent themes found affordances of convenience and challenges of relational and structural aspects of teaching and learning. Relational aspects of learning were more challenging, including peer collaboration, seeking informal advice and feedback from academics, and participation and engagement. We recommend the inclusion of student voice to guide post COVID-19 teacher education design recommend several areas of support to guide a humanising and personal connection into the remote learning environment.

Inquiry-based representation-focused approaches in science education have shown promising outcomes when students engage in knowledge building via an active process of constructing, coordinating, and evaluating representations. To date, much of the existing research around these approaches has taken place in pre-digital classrooms, but the increasing importance of digital technologies in contemporary science classrooms that has heightened during the on-going COVID pandemic could have ramifications for such approaches. To explore the potential for productive integration of a digital technology with active learning processes, this study investigated the role an interactive online learning platform played in supporting the construction and refinement of representations by students. This paper draws on research generated in the context of an Australian Grade 9 science class studying a physics unit focused on energy transfer considerations for sustainable housing. The research design featured an exploratory case study approach using multiple methods for data collection including video capture, interviews, and student artefacts. Data analysis involved the application of socio-semiotic perspectives to understand the nature of students' meaning-making processes through their generation and coordination of both digital and non-digital multimodal representations. This study found that the online platform allowed for extended access and the flexible use of multimodal resources facilitated students' representation construction activities. However, activities involving teacher-guided discussions and ongoing feedback were limited. The socio-semiotic analysis provided insights into the effective design of online learning sequences to guide conceptual development. This paper concludes by suggesting how specific affordances of interactive online platforms can effectively facilitate the design and delivery of active learning approaches involving representation construction.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the many existing inequalities in education systems across the world. Not all children have easy access to educational online resources or digital technologies, a situation more amplified in rural contexts where access, connectivity and affordability play a significant factor. This qualitative account reveals examples of how rural school leaders were able to find innovative ways early in the COVID-19 pandemic to address the remote learning needs of their students and families. This paper shares in-the-moment experiences of rural principals, and those who supported them, in quickly transitioning to address student needs when school buildings closed. Support actions of regional and state education agencies are also described. Principals' schools are located in rural areas of Kansas, Pennsylvania and Queensland, Australia. Principals' attention to place and teacher capacity enabled students and families to access educational offerings and supports in new ways.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the potential of the substitution, augmentation, modification and redefinition (SAMR) model as a research method via a project that aimed to investigate pre-service teachers' negotiation of data-rich environments. Design/methodology/approach: The project that underpins this paper saw the author working with a group of seven pre-service teachers through an online learning community on WhatsApp to explore their understanding of increasingly complex computational topics associated with the "Implications and Impacts" component of the digital technologies curriculum. Findings: The knowledge and experiences of the pre-service teachers suggest considerable unexplored potential through the alignment of the SAMR model in online learning communities. Originality/value: The paper draws attention to a range of opportunities associated with prompting discussion about increasingly complex topics in online learning communities. The adoption of the SAMR model offers a framework in education and the social sciences. It stresses the affordances enabled due to the personalized, ubiquitous and situated nature of the method. Unique contributions include the interpretive and critical approaches discussed in terms of research methods. The paper may be of value to researchers who are interested in a scaffolded means to engage with participants through an online learning community.

Effective leadership is recognised as the second most impactful variable influencing student achievement and promoting teaching quality (Bush 2021; Leithwood et al. 2020). The paper reports on the perceptions of educational leaders in the Western Australian public education system about: their leadership capability, support mechanisms and perceived lessons and opportunities for educational practice during COVID-19. Leading educational institutions is a demanding role requiring effective leadership skills in pre-COVID-19 pandemic times, and is an evolving, learning curve for leaders continuing to have an ongoing global impact. This paper reports on a subset of results from a larger study conducted via an online survey in 2021 after a second brief lockdown in Western Australia (WA) early in 2021 to capture leaders' voices at the peak period of applying leadership in practice. Data were gathered from a targeted cohort of leaders including School Principals, Associates/Deputy Principals, School Managers and Heads of Years. Respondents identified their top concerns as health and wellbeing, online learning, and operational factors. Leaders identified support mechanisms from their own colleagues and networks, support received from the central department of education and drawing on their own leadership skill set of personal attributes to self-manage in the crisis period.

The dramatic changes brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic have changed the way in which mathematics and statistics support is offered. Students and staff have been presented with new opportunities and challenges. One-on-one interviews were conducted late in 2020 with 23 students and staff who had experience with fully online mathematics and statistics support. The interviewees were from University College Dublin, Ireland, and Western Sydney University, Australia. Utilising thematic analysis, five themes around online mathematics and statistics support common to both universities were identified. In this paper the three themes related to "connection" are explored; they are pedagogical changes, social interaction, and appreciation of mathematics and statistics support. These themes highlight the need felt by both students and staff for mutual connection. The paper concludes with a discussion on the repercussions of this study for future considerations of effective online mathematics and statistics support.

For regional students, going to university frequently involves moving away from important home, family and community connections to forge new connections in unfamiliar environments. This is a daunting prospect discouraging many from considering university as an option. But what if university could come to them, allowing them to stay where they feel most connected, whilst also becoming connected with other students and developing a sense of inclusion within university culture? Recent research with high school students in regional South Australia indicates that the combination of online delivery (increasingly mainstreamed due to COVID-19) and the growing presence of Regional University Centres (RUCs) may provide the opportunity for this to happen. This paper discusses these findings within the context of the challenges for regional students in moving away from their connections. It argues that, instead, important learning connections may be offered within their local communities through the collaboration between universities and RUCs.

The COVID-19 pandemic impacted education provision worldwide. In Australia, the government took a proactive stance to reduce the impact of the pandemic, temporarily banning higher education students from attending university campuses. With a lockdown in place, educational institutions required a rapid shift in approaches to teaching and learning by both educators and students. Educators throughout Australia were asked to work from home and quickly transition their face-to-face (synchronous) classes into bichronous, fully online offerings. This paper reports on the experiences of 25 educators in an enabling course in a regional Australian university who were required to make this shift. These educators not only had to navigate this complex time personally, but they also had to work in their professional role with the additional responsibility of ensuring a particularly vulnerable cohort of non-traditional students felt a sense of belonging within this new educational space. Results showed that while the educators encountered a number of challenges in their transition, they also found ways to promote student belonging in the new teaching and learning environment. With a Pedagogy of Care being central to the educators' practice, they developed strategies to create a sense of emotional engagement among students to help them feel genuinely cared for. Additionally, they were able to construct a 'we mentality' discourse to establish a sense of shared understanding with students around the situation they were in. This study shows that enabling educators are capable of responding creatively to a complex and unpredictable environment, finding ways to replicate their proven pedagogies of care in unfamiliar contexts and thus foster a crucial sense of belonging among enabling students. The implications of a discussion about 'care' and 'belonging' within the field of enabling education are critical at the intra-pandemic and post-pandemic times, when traditional teaching methodologies are in flux.

In this paper we present a case study of doctoral study at a distance, and we explore issues of belonging, pedagogy and learning as part of that process. As a team of one doctoral researcher and three supervisors, we critically reflect on the place of belonging in the context of doctoral study by distance. In this case study, the importance of belonging was heightened due to a high-risk and highly volatile context in which the doctoral researcher lived, the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. We further explore the elements that developed a sense of belonging, aided by a range of digital technologies. Our findings suggest that the place of belonging in learning needs further examination in higher education contexts, especially when universities are keen to increase distance enrolments.

Online learning is rapidly becoming the preferred study option for many higher education students, due to its accessibility, convenience and flexible teaching arrangements. For other students who have access to a university campus, their preferred option is to attend on-campus classes, where advantages include synchronous interaction with peers, lecturers and access to practical experiences, materials, and resources. The impact of COVID-19 resulted in interruptions to social, economic, cultural, and educational life, with social distancing measures and health and well-being concerns leading to widespread restrictions in numerous different contexts. Universities throughout Australia restricted access to campuses and shifted their teaching of classes to purely online delivery. This shift posed many challenges for students and staff as ways of teaching and learning were reconceptualised. This paper examines the experiences of two different cohorts of pre-service teachers from two different universities who were studying full-time on-campus at the time when the restrictions were applied and reports the impact the shift to online had on cognitive, social and teaching presence within a model of community of inquiry. The findings indicate that despite the challenges involved with the rapid transition to online delivery, participants were able to identify the presence of core elements of the model, and how these factors impacted upon their engagement with the course.

Researchers who investigate value-laden professional practices face the challenge of creating a space in which to explore workplace priorities. Education professionals, for example, are keyed to the development and wellbeing of their students, yet frequently work in environments in which there are constraints on their practice. These professionals often have to find a balance among priorities, a process accompanied by reflection and professional conversations. For researchers seeking insight into the work of these professionals, accessing these reflections is not necessarily straightforward. This paper presents a method whereby sorting and think-aloud techniques were combined to create a space in which professionals could share reflections on professional priorities. Employing a magnetic board representing normative dimensions of high importance/low importance, and should/should not, participants were able to decide where to place magnetic labels capturing different aspects of their work. While interacting with the sorting task, participants verbalized their deliberations which were recorded, along with their label placements. Meaningful qualitative data were elicited through this process. We experienced that this combination of techniques offered an effective way of eliciting reflections and deliberations that throw light on aspects of professional work which may be less readily accessed through a traditional interview technique.

Whilst online learning has gained rapid momentum, the development of online technology and practices that support the delivery of online courses with a large research component has been slow. In 2017, the School of Psychological Sciences at Monash University, Australia, developed a potentially scalable and transferable online research portal. This is an all-in-one platform that is designed to facilitate and support online research and research supervision, for supervisors and students. The research portal has evolved to currently provide research and research supervision support to over 700 online psychology students at the university. This paper describes the development, implementation and impact of the research portal and presents data from a preliminary evaluation of its usability and user satisfaction. Both research students and supervisors from the fully online fourth-year Graduate Diploma of Psychology Advanced program at Monash University participated in a series of focus groups, individual usability testing sessions, and surveys, and reported favourably on the research portal's research supervisor and supervisee user satisfaction and usability. Qualitative and quantitative feedback provided useful information supporting research portal improvement and expansion possibilities, allowing an increasingly valuable contribution to online research supervision, research and research teaching.

This paper investigates the insights that we, as parent-educators gained from our children's learning experiences throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and how this impacted our approaches to learning and teaching. All authors are teacher education academics working at a regional Australian university. The rapid and extensive changes in our personal and professional circumstances provided an opportunity for us to critically examine the ways in which we promoted learning for our children and our students. Our reflections on these investigations form the basis of this article. To explore these issues we drew on a method involving narrative inquiry and the Indigenous concept of yarning that we call collaborative narrative inquiry and the theoretical framework of Antonovsky's salutogenic approach. Key findings of the research demonstrated tensions between the roles of parent and educator with a growing focus on the former and an increasing emphasis on health and well-being. These issues impacted the ways in which parent-educators facilitated learning for all students.

A key role of universities is the credentialing of student learning by awarding degrees and diplomas. This requires universities to have confidence in the integrity of their assessment processes and in turn, external stakeholders to have the same confidence. This study investigates the following research question: 'Has COVID-19 had an impact on the assessment and invigilation of accounting courses in Australia and New Zealand and, if so, how?' This is a critical issue for accounting faculty in many countries as COVID-19 has forced a shift in the way assessments are administered -- from face to face to online. The study involved a survey of accounting faculty in Australia and New Zealand and found changes occurred to how students were assessed because of COVID-19 and a variety of institutional responses to this. The paper makes recommendations for accounting educators, universities, and the professional accounting bodies.

One Australian public university is radically changing the way it delivers higher education, introducing a 6-week immersive scheduling delivery model across all units and courses. Despite the emerging success of block and immersive models for raising the performance of diverse student cohorts, the design factors underpinning positive outcomes are underexplored. This paper presents a mixed methods study of the impact and value of student engagement with interactive and responsive online content modules and synchronous classes in an immersive scheduling model. The findings indicate that behavioural engagement with online learning modules has a positive effect on academic success and is a significant predictor of a higher final score. Qualitative data indicate several attributes of high-quality online learning modules that students appear to associate with engagement and deeper learning in the immersive model: interactivity, media richness, constructive alignment, flexibility and responsiveness. Synchronous class attendance did not impact final scores; however, students nonetheless valued the opportunity to form safe and supportive communities of inquiry during classes. This study demonstrates that in times of increasing demand for more flexible learning, immersive scheduling models that are founded on active learning principles and embed interactive, responsive, media-rich online learning modules can improve student engagement and performance.

The rigid architectures inherent within formal schooling continue to influence young people's disengagement from education. Globally and locally, policy makers have proposed education reform and innovation, politicians have legislated for education change, yet still the problem of disengagement remains. This paper investigates one community's effort to support the reengagement in learning of young people aged 15-18 years in regional Australia through a flexible, online, community-based education program. Theoretically, this study used critical discourse as a way in to expose so as to explain dimensions of power and ideological positions as to what counts as learning. Critical ethnography as a methodology extended critical discourse's explanatory authority to a naming of spatial and social architectures and their impact on the young people's lives. Discourses of a braided curriculum, structural conviviality and emotional well-being were found to reduce some barriers to reengagement in learning; develop a shared, multi-disciplinary approach to reengagement; and be inclusive of young people's emotional well-being as central to the reengagement process. At this time of pandemic induced online learning as the new normal on a global scale, young people who are already vulnerable due to individual, school, and socio-cultural marginalising conditions deserve research processes with outcomes valorising their voices and those who work with them.

In recent times, there has been a strong focus on moving university teaching away from a so-called 'instructivist', lecture-centred mode, in which the focus is on what teachers are doing, towards a more student-centred 'constructivist' approach, centred on active learning and students' own constructions of knowledge. This paper considers the tensions and challenges raised by the ways in which constructivist ideas are being taken up in higher education, highlighting two particular issues (1) the positioning of curriculum knowledge as settled and easily transferable across modes of teaching; and (2) the neglect of important disciplinary differences as a result. These issues are explored in relation to two particular case studies of universities introducing new online learning reforms. These case studies show the problems potentially raised by the limited attention to curriculum in the push for more constructivist pedagogies, including a limited interpretation of what constructivist teaching entails and an inattention to the conditions required for its practice.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore emerging synergies and tensions between the twin moves to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) and online learning and teaching (L&T) in higher education institutions (HEIs). Design/methodology/approach: A preliminary global exploration of universities' SDG-based L&T initiatives was undertaken, using publicly available grey and academic literature. Across a total sample of 179 HEIs -- identified through global university rankings and analysis of all 42 Australian universities -- 150 SDG-based L&T initiatives were identified. These were analysed to identify common approaches to embedding the SDGs. Findings: Five key approaches to embedding the SDGs into online (and offline) HEI L&T were identified: designing curricula and pedagogy to address the SDGs; orienting the student experience towards the SDGs; aligning graduate outcomes with the SDGs; institutional leadership and capability building; and participating in cross-institutional networks and initiatives. Four preliminary conclusions were drawn from subsequent analysis of these themes and their relevance to online education. Firstly, approaches to SDG L&T varied in degree of alignment between theory and practice. Secondly, many initiatives observed already involve some component of online L&T. Thirdly, questions of equity need to be carefully built into the design of online SDG education. And fourthly, more work needs to be done to ensure that both online and offline L&T are delivering the transformational changes required for and by the SDGs. Research limitations/implications: The research was limited by the availability of information on university websites accessible through a desk-top review in 2019; limited HEI representation; and the scope of the 2019 THE Impact Rankings. Originality/value: To date, there are no other published reviews, of this scale, of SDG L&T initiatives in universities nor analysis of the intersection between these initiatives and the move to online L&T.

Purpose: This paper aims to present a comprehensive review of the present state and trends of smart education research. It addresses the need to have a systematic review of smart education to depict its research landscape in view of the growing volume of related publications. Design/methodology/approach: A bibliometric analysis of publications on smart education published in 2011 to 2020 was conducted, covering their patterns and trends in terms of collaboration, key publications, major topics and trends. A total of 1,317 publications with 29,317 cited references were collected from the Web of Science and Scopus for the bibliometric analysis. Findings: Research on smart education has been widely published in various sources. The most frequently cited references are all theoretical or discussion articles. Researchers in the USA, China, South Korea, India and Russia have been most active in research collaborations. However, international collaborations have remained infrequent except for those involving the USA. The research on smart education broadly covered smart technologies as well as teaching and learning. The emerging topics have addressed areas such as the Internet of Things, big data, flipped learning and gamification. Originality/value: This study depicts the intellectual landscape of smart education research, and illustrated the evolution and emerging trends in the field. The results highlight its latest developments and research needs, and suggest future work related to research collaborations on a larger scale and more studies on smart pedagogies.

In this paper we provide an evaluative description and report of the various aspects of teaching and learning Greek as a heritage and/or foreign language in the Northern Territory of Australia. Initially, we focus on the importance of the formation of dynamic learning communities through interdisciplinary collaboration. The main purpose of Charles Darwin University's "Greek In-Country Study Program" is to support the learning of Greek language and culture through language lessons as well as concurrent cultural activities that are delivered while students are in Greece. After thirteen years of successful implementation of the program, the purpose of this report is to highlight the learning activities that have been completed over these years through a discussion of the research outcomes of the students' experiences that we believe will underscore the important roles that language, literature, and culture play in the strengthening of one's Greek identify while living within Australia. Within this framework, basic principles of design and the use of cross-university teaching and learning programs for the Greek language are presented, as well as foregrounding the advantages of current information technology for instructional purposes and, in particular, the maintenance, and perhaps even revival of heritage languages as well as reinforcing their contributions to the role of education in the diaspora.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has seriously impacted countries across the globe. The pandemic has created a completely new teaching-learning environment of interaction for early childhood educators. In many countries, face-to-face teaching has been replaced by remote teaching, while in others, there have been intermittent lockdowns and limited interruptions to regular teaching norms. Given the play-based nature of preschool teaching-learning activities in most countries, educators are required to reimagine the sociocultural relationships to their pedagogical practices in their everyday teaching-learning contexts. This paper sheds light on educators' experiences and the dramatic shift in their indoor-outdoor teaching-learning environment due to the evolving health measures. The study draws on notions of teachers' identities and Vygotsky's cultural-historical concept of social situation of development (Vygotsky, 1994) to capture the new forms of relationships that early childhood educators experienced with their pedagogical environments across different countries during the pandemic. Data were collected from preschool teachers across five countries--Australia, Bangladesh, Norway, Singapore and India using online surveys which included open- and close-ended questions. Findings reveal the on-ground realities and teachers' adaptations to new pedagogies emerging across the five countries. The new digital environments provided an equally new dimension for change. These changes were seen in interactions, relationships within the everyday pedagogical contexts, as well as the shifting physical and social environment of early years educators.